5 Names You Cannot Miss at Euphoria This Weekend

These 5 names set Euphoria Music and Camping Festival 2015 apart from other dance music festivals this year. Without being too eclectic or random, organizers found a unique mix of DJs, live performers and entertainers that set it apart from Electric Daisy or Ultra. You won't want to miss these names this weekend:

Ghostland Observatory

Central Texas is a big fan of Ghostland Observatory and for good reason. Their tunes dance around our earworms like an Apple commercial created in the middle of a rock concert. Ghostland's last record Codename: Rondo has the minimal instrumentation/production of a Little Dragon album with the ironic attitude of LCD Soundsystem. Ghostland Observatory has only performed once since declaring 'hiatus' almost 2 years ago, but this weekend we get a chance to see the band Saturday night. Ghostland is scheduled to take the stage 10pm at Euphoria's 'UnEarth Tent'.

Thomas Jack

House vs EDM - a situation that plays out across the country. In San Antonio, typically you find house DJs downtown while we find EDM on the northside and in large venues like Alamo City Music Hall. EMCF15 not only brings House & EDM under one danceparty tent, EMCF15 brings several types of dance music to Austin this weekend. Thomas Jack doesn't spin the typical Ultra/EDC type EDM sets, but leans more housey than headliners like Adventure Club or Tritonal.

Big Gigantic

The Boulder, CO-based duo create an interpretation of traditional dance oriented music that utilizes saxophones and live drums. They released their fifth studio album "The Night Is Young" (available as a free download on their website) last year, same year Big Gigantic made their Coachella debut and brought out a local high school marching band for the performance. This year, Big Gigantic will perform Sunday night on the Main Stage at Euphoria.

Gigamesh

Not a slave to plugins or a one-trick pony stuck on effects porn, Gigamesh produces the type of dance music that is timeless and classic. For example, his hooks and progressions are comprised of actual note sequences and not the result of effects usage. The vocal samples and guest singers on his tracks aren't tweaked through vocoders but have incredible voices. Gigamesh creates a type of techno-house blend that utilizes analogue and traditional modern dance sounds: arpeggiated synth rhythms & 8bit flutters with four-to-the-floor kick drums & upbeat congas. Catch Gigamesh TOMORROW Friday night at 9:15 on the Dragonfly stage at Euphoria.

CRIAS

CRIAS, Fantastic Dan and myself were on our way to Alien Records in Austin to pick up some vinyl. It was early on a First Friday about 11 years ago, back when they still hosted art exhibits in the silos at Blue Star. Dan was DJing there that night but we needed a few new records first. The 3 of us stopped at a friend's apartment across the street from Planet K to see if they wanted to ride with us, but they declined. The moment we got back in Dan's old school F150 and he put it in reverse - 3 cop cars (1 unmarked) pull up behind us and tell us to get out of the vehicle. Eyes huge, we look at each other like "WTF?!" (we had a blunt ready for the ride).

Dan looks down, sighs and puts the truck in park. We step out and they ask for our IDs. "What are you 3 doing here?" one cop asked. "We came to ask a friend if she wanted to go with us to Austin." - There was silence and suspicion. CRIAS, Fantastic Dan and myself confused as fuck. "If you can produce the girl to confirm your story, we'll let you go." I quickly ran to CRIAS's friends' apartment and frantically knocked on the door, told her what was up and she came with me. Upon arriving, we showed the police everything was on the up-and-up and they let us go.

Turned out, there was some drama the night before at the apartment complex. Some dude banging on a girl's door, screaming "IMMA KILL YOU BITCH!" We fit a description: 3 hispanic males in a pick-up truck.. . -__- All they had to do was search us & they would have found that blizzy. But nope. We were dancing that night, back in SA at the silos for First Friday.

Once again, I ride up to Austin in the morning with CRIAS. This time, it's because I'm writing about the event and CRIAS is opening the UNEARTH TENT.

Miles Terracina

Miles Terracina: -chief lyricist and beat programmer of the electronic
music group Mixed Use Media. -Founded the blog & character persona
PunkSoda. -Creator of Sobre Sound -writes about music -likes barbacoa